That doesn't really change it all that much, it still retains the basic issue of exponential growth + hard to kill + lag. And that'd break Crystalis (in a bad way) but that't not played anyway.
With Replicate's 5 round cooldown though, it really delays the exponential growth part. Also, since Replicate halves your HP every time you use it, it means you have to split them up more in order to achieve critical mass through healing. Maybe change up the Death Nova upgrade path a bit too so that he doesn't have access to rank 3 or 4. That way, if one dies, it doesn't heal the others up to full HP.
Ok, let's try a costructive approach. Assuming this rune is a "living piece of lava" or the small brother of magma elemental, what could be its role? I would say, first to generate lava (as the original design seems to be); then the art show a sort of snail/worm, so it could be slow and not very fierce, but resilient due to its elemental nature. Let's try to combine... DMG: 0 DEF: 3 SPD: 6 RNG: 1 HP: 30 Fire Aura 3 Immunity Fire Lava Front Lumbering UPGRADE 1 Turtle (tankier build) Tunnel Lava 3 (mobile build) Amplify Fire (support build) UPGRADE 2 Trail Lava (extra lava gen) Lava Fall 2 (more lava gen) Lava Storm (ranged lava gen + offensive power)
HOW ABOUT giving them short-lived 2? You could only generate a front of them, instead of an unending ocean. Just a rough idea, but it could be interesting.
The problem is that you largely end up with Firestarter, though Lavastorm probably makes this better.
Obviously Lavaspout is under discussion here, but what other "broken interactions" are you referring to?
Race: Elemental, Class: None, Size: Small, Rarity: Rare Nora Cost: 51-62 Champion Stats DAM: 8, SPD: 6, RNG: 1, DEF: 1, HP: 48 (+41 nora) Champion Abilities Attack Fire +2 nora Earthbound -5 nora Fire Eater +8 nora Lumbering -18 nora Replicate +10 nora Upgrade Ability Set #1 Damage Shield Fire 3 +3 nora Domain Lava +4 nora Death Nova Lava 3 +7 nora Deflect Fire +12 nora Upgrade Ability Set #2 Lava Fall +10 nora Lava Front +10 nora Trail Lava +12 nora
Yea, but we could just as easily give Rapid Growth CD5. I think given Lava and Fire Eater, the healing wouldn't really be much of a hindrance. I suppose the AP cost in theory in combination with Lumbering limits the healing somewhat. So the problem is that each of the individual parts presents a problem in theory: Lava Front = Lag and hard to move around in at critical mass Fire Eater = Heals up quickly Death Nova: Fire = Massive damage and healing even when you are killing them Rapid Growth is what ties it all together and makes all of those a problem, but without it is ends up being just a Fire Eater champ with Lava generation. Changing it to Replicate (or making Rapid Growth worse with AP/CD, etc.) delays it, but keeps the problem in theory, but is probably the best bet.
How about short lived limiting the number? Actually a bit of an interesting mathematical problem ... how would the numbers propagate?
I do think the Short-Lived idea is pretty interesting. That is still a lot of Death Nova: Lava tho, but it does deal with the critical mass + lava front lag problem.
It causes severe lag and the ability itself has been abused in ud for a long time and also st at one point. The concept behind rapid growth is interesting but their is just no room for it in a game like pox that awards "strategic/tactical play". When I see a turn 1 lavaspout and I lose it's never a situation where I go well I could have played better, many themes i'll admit maybe I messed up a turn or did something wrong that cost me the game. Lava spout isn't one of those situations, it's always they drew lava spout turn 1, by the time I get to it the damage will be done.
I don't think Lava Front causing lag in this instance with Lavaspout is an example of other broken interactions - it is the exact one we are talking about, and I honestly do not recall Crystalis ever being an issue. So aside from that, no other champions have the ability, so I am still not sure what broken interactions you are referring to aside from Lavaspout?
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(2^(0.5(x-1)))-(2^(0.5(x-3))) Uh, I think that is the right function for the growth of the number of lava spouts if they had short lived 2. Seems they still grow out of bound, just slower. Sahme with SL 1, just even slower. What you'd need is something that increasingly slowed them down the higher their number got, but I don't really know immediately how such an ability would look or how you would do it without having your head fall off with all the coding work.
I think this is just a balance issue and not a concept issue. The concept is basically you are paying nora and time for something that's a long-term plan. Now, it's reasonable to say that this ramp too fast, etc. but I don't think, outside of the lag issue, that it is inherently not compatible with Pox Nora. That said, I do think the specific implementation of Lavaspout does lead to problems for various reasons, but the underlying principle itself isn't an issue.
